Oooh! Oprah!

In an earlier post, I mentioned the Bulimic cause of Terri Schiavo’s vegetative state. Another woman, Santia Manoz was quite an overweighed girl for her age. She was taken aback whenever she saw herself in the mirror so much so that she nearly stopped going out. And cocooned herself in her little home. But, one day, she met her sweetheart who accepted her for whatever she was and is. Later, both of them married.

But, it took little time for Santia to know how bitter her lover was. He started pestering her to loose weight as her body was affecting his acceptance levels in the society. He was slowly moving from embarrassment to harassment. Santia gave in to his demands and agreed to a gastrointestinal surgery to help her easily loose weight. She had surrendered her self to his whims. Though she considerably lost weight, it still didn’t convince her husband. Her mistake of listening to something outside her had taken its toll. Now, she has divorced him and when Oprah asks her: did he leave you? Santia to a rising applause replied: I left him.

In another tale, Oprah introduces Michelle Hegelson to a calm audience. Micelle’s story is heartbreaking. She was a single mother with three children; none of them more than 10 years of age. She was a broken woman frequently loosing jobs as well as her calm. She was once a pharmacist. But, she couldn’t somehow get on in her life well. One day overcome with depression, she could no longer bear the mischief of her three kids. To calm them down, she powdered 2-3 pills of a calming-down drug Xanax for each child. Mixed the powder in juice and gave it to the kids. First, the youngest kid, the daughter collapsed. Her two sons followed. She knew, being a pharmacist herself, that Xanax is life-threatening. She then called 911 for three separate ambulances to save her kids. Her kids survived but she lost their custody to her former husband.

Michelle was just conquered by her circumstances so much that knowing that Xanax would have such an effect, drugged her children with it just to have some peace of mind. A moment of selfishness has caused her a lifetime of loneliness. The kids she loved the most are separated from her for life. A split-second decision has severed her happiness. Whenever in such scary situation, she advises us to talk to neighbors or take a walk or do something that one knows would cool them down.